eternal cave, one made of drapes
by sheriff stilinski
Summary: "You have to be cruel to be kind, Dick." MacDick


Title: eternal cave, one made of drapes

Summary: "You have to be cruel to be kind, Dick." MacDick

Author's Note: Title comes from "Dropla" by Youth Lagoon. Wrote this ages and ages ago and thought it wasn't finished, but decided it was? So, here ya go.

/

"Stop making me love you," Dick says to an empty room.

The room doesn't respond. Not the coffee table or the big television or the sofa cushions. This makes Dick mad.

"I hate you," he says. "Seriously, dude, I hate you."

The silence hurts his ears. He drops an open bottle of Cuervo on the ground, hoping it will shatter. Instead, it just lands with an empty thud and there's now alcohol seeping into the carpet. If Dick lit a match, the fabric would go up in flames. Dick picks the bottle up and finishes what's left.

He rolls his eyes, but that wasn't really his gesture to begin with. The motion makes him feel like his eyes will get stuck. Maybe Dick would only be able to look inside himself.

"You were always so quiet," he says. The accompanying sigh that comes out turns the room yellow. "I always hated that."

/

Something people never tell you is that when you drink to numb the pain, other parts of you get numb. Dick hasn't jerked off or pursued sex with genuine interest in two weeks. He wishes he woke up from wet dreams instead of nightmares. The door bell ringing, his hands reaching to open the front door, and concrete meeting him there.

Sometimes, he wakes up thinking about Ghostworld. This actually happens more than sometimes and that fact makes him grab a bottle. When he thinks about Ghostworld and her pale skin freckled with beauty marks and sadness, he drinks the clear stuff. Vodka, gin — whatever type of clear, fuck up your throat from the burn shit will do.

He wishes he could have dreams where he licked her salty memories of BeaverCassidy off her skin. It would make seeing her a different sort of ache that could get his dick to twitch rather than twist his head into juice. There she is, looking at the wall. There she is, trying to smile at Veronica's joke. There she is, in his penthouse, in his space, taking up all the air and trying not to meet his eyes.

He wants to fuck Ghostworld a lot, but he feels like even if she managed to get in his bed, he couldn't be able to get it up. It would be a sick twist of coincidence and could really nail in the Casablancas curse. She'd probably start to cry, twisted in the sheets of his hotel room. BeaverCassidy didn't even give her that luxury. He just left her with nothing but the shower curtain she wrapped herself in. They all think he's dumb, everyone, but it's pretty easy to access a police report. He may have had to wave a twenty in front of some poor, unaware underling's face instead of hack his way in, but he's not a complete imbecile. Money talks, it fucks, and it gives you the gory details about why your best friend's girlfriend hates you and her best girl friend looks like all she wants to do is sleep.

BeaverCassidy turned Mac purple. Dick doesn't forgive him for that.

/

"Dick, stop."

Veronica is looking like he wishes Dick would go away. Dick doesn't know why he even lives (here, yes). Or why Veronica keeps coming if she knows he's going to be here.

"What?" he asks.

It's easier for him this way. Antagonize her through real questions he don't know the questions to. Watch Veronica seethe. Watch Veronica's hair stand on end. Watch Veronica sigh because he was one of BeaverCassidy's victims too, but he didn't even think about making Dick one. Watch Veronica go into Logan's room to shower.

Dick is looking at Mac again. She's staring at her palms. He wonders how long her lifeline is because he was hooking up this chick for a while who'd always read his palms. She said something like he would live for a long time and then made up some bullshit line to make him even more eager to bring her to his bed. Dick used to like the thought of living forever.

Mac stops looking and stares at the television because Logan was playing a game before he went out to get everyone takeout and the screen keeps shouting "paused" over and over in bright letters. After a while, it says, _if you don't continue, you will lose your place. Would you like to continue?_

Dick says, "No."

Mac picks up the controller and hits yes. She bites her lip. She makes him feel red as she doesn't let the bone of her teeth let go of her flesh. He wants to kiss her, sometimes. She wins the round and then, finally, realizes he's looking at her. She loses a life.

"You're going to try to kiss me one day," Mac says, eyes glazed over. She isn't even really looking at him, but she should be, because she's turned to him and if he mattered to her, she'd be seeing him right now. But he doesn't, he guesses. "I feel like that's going to happen one day."

Right now, Dick feels too afraid to do that. BeaverCassidy weighs heavily on his mouth. Dick wonders if his mouth is evil for saying mean things or if it's nature versus nurture.

"Want to play a multiplayer game?" he asks. "I'm bored."

"Single player games are more suitable for right now," she says with a nasally voice. He wonders if that's a therapist talking, but what therapist would talk about video games? "You have absolute control over the game instead of others taking the control from you."

He huffs, but it's put on and she almost smiles at him playing pretend, "But I'm bored."

Mac blinks, "You could've kissed me now, if you wanted. But now, I don't think you will."

"What if I did?" Dick asks. He puts his feet up to ground him. "What if I kissed you right now?"

A smile creeps into her voice but it's not there on her face. She leans into empty air, into a phantom person, "You won't. You can't."

Dick wakes up, sweating, thinking that one day he'll do it. He'll prove her wrong.

When he falls asleep again, all he sees are matches and the lines of her palms. They're short, broken off too early. Her hands pick up his own and when he finally looks at his own, he sees they never end. They're dripping off his skin onto the floor.

"Do you want to live forever?" Dream Mac's palms ask.

"I want you."

"Well," they sigh, "That's too bad. We think you might not ever get the timing right."

"I could be on time, you know. I'm getting better at that."

Then, suddenly, BeaverCassidy is in front of Dick. They smile with their palms pressed backward to their cheeks. Their short lifelines are caked in ink, drip onto the ground till there are pools around Dick's white shoes.

They snicker, "Oh yeah? Then, where's your watch?"

When Dick wakes up again, he runs to throw up in the toilet. On his way out, he sees Mac asleep on the couch, hands held in prayer behind her head. She puffs out air when she exhales, but her stomach swells when she does. That's not how you're supposed to breathe.

BeaverCassidy whispers in Dick's ear, "You know you can't ruin her."

"I don't want to."

BeaverCassidy smiles, "You know what you have to do then, right?"

Dick shakes his head.

BeaverCassidy shakes their head, "You have to be cruel to be kind, Dick. That's how you keep her safe."

Dick nods. Dick watches Mac pray in slumber. Dick returns to his bed, takes a shot from the bottle on the nightstand, and jerks off, thinking about Ghostworld. Dick whispers, cruel to be kind. Cruel to be kind.

Dick thinks, one day, when she's safe, he'll prove her wrong.


End file.
